Academic Work

“What war?” is a response I often hear after mentioning the Second Sino-Japanese War to friends in Europe or America. Although the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)[1] is actively commemorated within China, its history is relatively unknown in other parts of the world. For many people in the West, the war in China happened far away, […]

For an upcoming Routledge edition on Religion and the Media in China, I have been working on a chapter about the Confucian influences on the portrayal of women in contemporary Chinese television drama. The volume, that is edited by Stefania Travagnin, focuses on “the intersection of religion and the media in China, bringing interdisciplinary approaches […]

The celebration of the Saint Nicholas festival and the Dutch ‘Sinterklaas’ practices have survived for the last 500 years. Despite the strength of the tradition, disagreement about it has almost become a tradition in itself.

“My name is Nikki but my friends all call me Coco after Coco Chanel, a French lady who lived to be almost ninety. She’s my idol, after Henry Miller. Every morning when I open my eyes I wonder what I can do to make myself famous. It’s become my ambition, almost my raison d’être, to burst upon the city like fireworks. “

The May Fourth Movement (1915-24) is also referred to as the Chinese Enlightenment or the Chinese Renaissance. It is the cultural revolution that was brought about by the political demonstrations on the fourth of May 1919

Stick Out Your Tongue, originally Stick out your tongue or you’ll have nothing (亮 出你的舌苔或空空荡荡) was first published in China in 1987. The book, a collection of five short stories, depicts Tibet in an exotic and sexualized way, and evoked strong reactions from both Chinese as Tibetan people.

In September 1995, a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl was raped by three US servicemen, not far from the military bases on the island. The incident caused great commotion in Okinawa and Japan, and this outrage quickly raised the debate concerning the presence of US bases in Japan.

Throughout the 20th century, the concept of ‘Chinatown’ has not failed to stir our imaginations. Many books and films evolve around this part of the city, whether the city is New York, London, Vancouver or Amsterdam

It is very hard to identify one China and define what that one China would be, since China has got many faces. Taiwan is one of those faces of China. The terms “Taiwanese” or “Chinese” have different meanings for different people, and the meaning can also change over time.

Imagined Communities, 26 years after its publishing, still does not fail to bring new insights into the idea of nationalism; a concept that is very important in modern times, since every successful revolution since WWII has defined itself in terms of ‘nationalism’.

Japan and China are both on a campaign to widen and deepen their contacts in Africa. Beijing declared 2006 as China’s ‘Year of Africa’ when the China-Africa Summit took place in Beijing. 2008 was Japan’s ‘Africa Year’ when it hosted the fifth annual Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).

What it means to be a ‘man’ varies to different people and different cultures. Being ‘male’ and being ‘masculine’ are not the same, and what we view as ‘masculine’ in a certain culture is not a set idea, but changeable over time.